much. we have much more ahead on "cnn saturday morning" which starts right now. good morning, everyone. i'm randi kaye. victor blackwell is on assignment. 7:00 on the east coast and 4:00 out west. thank you for starting your day with us. we start this morning in israel where troops are massing on the border with gaza this morning. the move comes days after back and forth bombardments. israel has launched dozens of air strikes while militants in gaza have fired nearly 200 rockets into israel. we are on both sides of the border in the line of fire. our sara sidner is in gaza city. let's go to southern israel where israeli tanks are on the move. the israeli defense forces say at least 30,000 troops are being mobilized along the border with gaza and thousands more are getting their marching orders. as we said, cnn's frederick is

live along the border. you have been on the front lines there. what type of military activity are you seeing? >> hi, randi. a lot of military activity going on here between the border area between gaza and israel. we just had armored vehicles come through here and moving in closer to the border. of course, a lot of people believe that israelis must launch a ground offensive into gaza quite soon and we are seeing a lot of troops really near the border of our area and the israelis have also called in tens of thousands of reservists and reporting for duty right now. when you go along the border area you see units that are hiding behind tree lines and they are, obviously, very wary of getting shot at from gaza. you see a lot of tanks emasing there and armored vehicles and armored bulldozers, as well. the other thing you get a really first-hand view here in this area is, of course, the air strikes that are going on. we have warplanes overhead

basically constantly and plumes of smoke come up over gaza but the fire is also going in the other direction and there have been some hits of rockets going out of gaza, hitting in israel. one just a couple of minutes ago in the town that wounded several people, randi. >> what is the mood like, i'm curious there in southern israel. are the residents more on edge? >> they're absolutely on edge and absolutely worried. the interesting thing about the people in the towns that surround the gaza strip is they're used to having rocket attacks on a regular basis. but, of course, now with the situation escalating, these things are common place every day and you'll have the air sirens go off several times a day and impacts, as well. it is something that is taking its toll on the people, especially children, of course, quite traumatized by this. people are staying inside for the better part of the day, not leaving their house when they do have to leave their house, they plan their routes very carefully so they pass by hardened shelters every once in a while

if they could take cover when rockets come flying in. they can't do anything right now. their businesses are idle. we went to the marina in the line of fire a lot. just last night and the place is absolutely deserted. there would be people out there having their beer and going to bars but absolutely no one out there. taking a toll on the economic situation for the people there and, of course, they are also, of course, very worried about rockets flying on to their town. randi? >> fred, appreciate your reporting there. now, let's go to gaza where israeli warplanes battered dwauza city earlier this morning. sara sidner is there. what have they hit? >> they've hit quite a few places. we know they have hit the police headquarters. we were here at 4:00 in the morning when that happened. i want to show you the video of our photographer dan morgan was live shooting this video. we're standing right behind him and the windows rattled and the

building shook and all of a sudden we saw this big ball of fire just behind us. we are in a building that is about 11 stories tall looking down on gaza city in the middle of gaza. now, this building that got hit last night was actually the police headquarters. i want to show you the result of that blast from last, from early, excuse me, early this morning around 4:00 a.m. if you take a look there, dan is zooming into the picture. you'll see smoldering rubble. that is the police headquarters that was hit around 4:00 a.m. and what you're seeing is part of the building collapsed. there is a bit of the building that is still standing and we also know that hamas' headquarters has been hit also this morning. we know three more people have died bringing the death toll so far here in gaza to 39 people. we visited, randi, the hospital yesterday and it was just chaotic because every 15 minutes, there was ambulances

coming up to the hospital, even people who were just bringing people in in their own cars. very chaotic there in the hospital and i think the scene is very much the same today, randi. >> sara sidner, thank you very much and please stay safe there. thank you very much. the u.s. is working behind the scenes to head off an all of hut war in the middle east. president obama spoke on the phone with benjamin netanyahu to try to defuse the situation. that is not all washington is doing. let's go to cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr in washington. barbara? >> the big concern here in washington is a ground war in gaza. there is growing concern that israeli troops and tank forces might cross the border and move into gaza. that is the major escalation that the u.s. does not want to see. so, the calculation now is, what does it take to make hamas stop its rocket attacks into israel and israel feel comfortable enough with that to pull back on

the air strikes and pull back on any ground forces that it is assembling near the gaza border. there has been a lot of diplomacy going on. defense secretary leon panetta traveling in asia, calling the israeli defense minister barack. secretary of state hillary clinton firing up the diplomatic phone lines calling israel, turkey and jordan. randi? >> barbara starr in washington, thank you. as you can see, cnn has every angle covered on this story. much more ahead this hour. here's a look at what we have coming up. on the brink of war. as fighting escalates between israel and hamas, experts say there will likely be a lot more bloodshed before the violence stops. and battling over benghazi. lawmakers are furious.

the president is standing his ground and there is still no one in custody. all morning, we're putting the conflict and the players in focus. and they're the quiet victims of the superstorm. the efforts to rescue pets from sandy's devastating blow. [ male announcer ] when a major hospital

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intelligence committees gathered by the u.s. lawmakers afterward reported publicly on some of what he told them. cnn contributor and former fbi assistant director tom fuentes is extremely knowledgeable about how this kind of investigation can unfold and how it can change over time. he joins us this morning from washington. good morning. what do you make of david petraeus' appearance on the hill. did lawmakers get the answers they were looking for? >> i think they got many of the answers. it is hard to unravel that entire incident in just a short period of time. so, it make take more explanations in a wider group of officials to come in and comment on it. but, you know, so much has been made about his appearance or his resignation prior to testifying and, you know, it's been, you know, it's been interesting because those committees can subpoena him or anybody else any time they want. it is not like he was suddenly inaccessible by retiring or

leaving his position with the cia. as far as the investigation goes, that's still going to continue and still going to continue to take time and i think part of the discussion is just the sematic difference here. well, it was an act of terrorism, no doubt of that. but a terrorist act can also be spaontaneously committed. you can have the terrorists preparing to do an attack and all the weapons they're ever going to need following the civil war in that country. so, they're readily armed and they had a year and a half to train on how to fire mortars and others more sophisticated weapons. the fact that maybe on short notice they decided to go out and attack that consulate, you know, it's not making it mutually exclusive, but kind of a spontaneous act and absolutely a terrorist act. it can be both. >> do you get the sense after all the back and forth on friday and the testimony from petraeus that some gop lawmakers may skewing the white house over this? maybe ritter changed their

thinking? >> i don't know. that remain ts to be seen. if they have a reason to stop doing it. you heard many republican lawmakers say that they're satisfied that there wasn't a conspiracy to hide the facts and, again, much of this is the terminology and place. you also heard comments about, why won't they call it al qaeda or we know it is al qaeda. alkida has morphed into a franchise. al qaeda sympathetic and has the same goals and objectives of al qaeda but not under the command. you have many different groups out there, such as groups around benghazi and you have many individuals during the iraq war travel from that area around benghazi to iraq so that they could go to graduate school of terrorism and learn how to operate sophisticated weapons and then go back to libya and then all these weapons come in for the civil war to overthrow

khaddifi. they are trained and equipped and have everything they need. all they need is the phone call to say, let's go. >> in terms of the talking points, though, that ambassador rice was working off of when she went on all those morning talk shows. they were unclassified talking points. but cnn has learned the original draft for those talking points suggested that the attack had links to al qaeda, but that it was an inner agency decision to change the wording to extremists. as you said, all sorts of those. but was that the right move, do you think? should they have been clearer in those unclassified talking point? >> i think in retro spect. so much criticism about that that possibly they should have been. but, again, you know, the number of agencies that are going to weigh in on this and then you also still have the continuing work of the intelligence community in libya and in the benghazi area. they may have still wanted to downplay it, not for political reasons, but possibly protecting sources and methods for ongoing investigation in that region that, you know, things that had

been investigated or were being investigated in groups that were attempted to be penetrated before the attack ever occurred. so, a lot of equities that in particular the cia might have in the region and just want to be, you know, not trying to overly spotlight it because there are still continuing efforts to penetrate those groups. >> as we try to figure out exactly what happened there. is it feasible for the u.s. to send in, say, a forensics team to investigate the benghazi site after all this time? >> well, i mean, that work has now been done. you know t wasn't done as immediately as many had hoped and the government of libya being weak and not really having adequate control in benghazi was not able to secure that site so that the fbi could immediately go in or at least go in within the first couple days after it and then they didn't protect the crime scene, so, you saw individuals go in there, including journalists go in and have access to that site before authorities could come.

and it's easier to allow reporters to go in there than it is to have an official team of the fbi. i think the libyan government was concerned that, you know, if they go in and they start working, were they going to be able to control these militant groups in the area? would they start raining down rockets on them from afar and make it very unsafe to work? where there would be no availability to protect them if these things were being fired from rooftops ten blocks away, how would they take that on without having civilian casualties and without escalating it? i think there were a lot of concerns for how to do that. i used to be responsible in my last five years in the bureau of those deployments, of sending people out to areas to conduct forensic exams of where americans have been killed. my last one was the mumbai incident in 2008. so, so, you know, i'm very familiar with the procedures and protocols and need of protection

for the investigators when they go to a site like that. this was just a little more unusual because it wasn't occurring in a country where they have adequate control. wasn't occurring in london or riyadh or countries where say the have adequate security forces and can protect the investigators that come in to do the forensic work. this was just an out of control situation. our government, as well as the libyan government did not feel in the immediate aftermath that they could do it and the libyans were concerned about a political backlash among their independents and their moderates that if all of a sudon the u.s. comes in and bring in investigators and bring in the marines, let's say, to protect them, that this looks like, again, an american occupation and there were a lot of ramifications politically to the libyans to worry about compared to the possibility of success of finding something new in that site. >> tom fuentes, thank you very much. appreciate that insight this

morning. thank you. >> you're welcome, randi. pets abandoned because of superstorm sandy. their owners and their homes are gone, but they are still there. luckily help has arrived. i'll take you on the ride along with their new guardians. presenting androgel 1.62%. both are used to treat men with low testosterone. androgel 1.62% is from the makers of the number one prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. it raises your testosterone levels, and... is concentrated, so you could use less gel. and with androgel 1.62%, you can save on your monthly prescription. [ male announcer ] dosing and application sites between these products differ. women and children should avoid contact with application sites. discontinue androgel and call your doctor if you see unexpected signs of early puberty in a child, or, signs in a woman which may include changes in body hair or a large increase in acne, possibly due to accidental exposure. men with breast cancer or who have or might have prostate cancer,

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welcome back, everyone. i spent part of this past week in new york on staten island. i saw the broken lives and shattered lives that superstorm sandy left behind. people are rezsilientresilient. they will rebuild or move else where. . some victims can't speak for themselves or care for themselves, but they're not alone any more. >> we're going to have cat food at the corner of midlean. >> reporter: him and his team from guardians of rescue are in staten island trying to find, feed pets that were abandoned during superstorm sandy. robert's team has rescued 100 cats so far. he says residents underestimated the amount of water the storm

would bring, so pets either drowned or ran far from home to escape the rushing water. of those found -- >> many of them are suffering from stress, to start. some of the cats had blood in the urine, some had internal injuries, some of them had exterior wound. we found several cats with sea water in their lungs. >> reporter: it's a big job, which is why robert called on his friend hush, a hip-hop artist from detroit. he is an animal lover. hush's contacts in detroit donated nearly 8,000 pounds of dog and cat food. then he drove 12 hours through the night to new york to help robert's group. what worries you most about the pets that are probably out there? >> being displaced. you know, just being out of their element. they're probably freaking out. >> reporter: hush and the volunteers went door-to-door looking for pets that may have

been left behind. >> we have plenty of food. >> reporter: and dropping off food and supplies. >> thank you very much. >> reporter: along the way, they picked up whatever pets they could find. >> we're going to put him in his carrier. okay. it's all right. it's okay. >> reporter: this house is typical of this midland beach area of staten island. you can see the big red sticker on the front door, unsafe area. clearly somebody came by to check the home and found it to be unsafe, but whoever that was wasn't looking for cats and dogs they were looking for humans and to check on t condition of the home. bewhen we pulled up we did find a group of four cats eating from this cat food here. obviously, somebody left this behind for the cats. the question is, though, how long will they be able to survive on this food and will somebody be able to save them before this food runs out? robert marks the house so they know to come back for the cats. if they find them, they'll try

to catch them. otherwise they'll set humane traps to save them. >> they can't talk. they can't say, hey, my owner left me behind or, hey, i'm stuck. i have no where to go. i need food. >> reporter: like this cat, who was hungry and alone. we were finally able to coax her out of an abandoned house. >> she's starving. she's eating so fast. >> reporter: eventually, she was put in a cage. she'll be held in foster care until the owner can move home, again. or she'll be put up for adoption. after a terrible storm that took so much from so many, a reason to be thankful. those two groups are doing incredible work. they are still out there every day trying to find pets. i just want to point out one more time that all these pets will be fostered or adopted. none of them are going to be put down. here are the two websites you're looking at where you can help. they take donations and try to

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